


The Rock

by ssstrychnine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-19 08:28:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2381666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssstrychnine/pseuds/ssstrychnine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brienne is the bouncer at a dingy club owned by the Lannister family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rock

Brienne doesn't understand why the Lannisters even own the club. It’s dirty and dark and on the wrong side of town and they also own _King's Landing_ for God’s sake and that’s easily the swankiest restaurant in the city. The Rock is the opposite of that. It sits in an alley between a twenty four hour laundromat with perpetually broken windows and what Brienne is pretty sure is a brothel, if only because she sees Petyr Baelish there so often it couldn't really be anything else.

_The Rock_ has no cover charge and Brienne is the only full time bouncer (Sandor comes in at weekends, not that they ever really need him) and their clientele can never afford drinks and always try to bring flasks in which Brienne neatly confiscates. They sit in shadowy corners mostly. They leave used needles in the bathrooms mostly. And Jaime Lannister prowls around like a wild cat, smelling of money, begging to be mugged in his own club.

“You know you don’t have to be here every night,” she tells him. “Varys takes care of everything.”

“I’m here for you darling,” he deadpans, not even looking at her. “Varys doesn't care about this place.”

“And you do?” she almost laughs and he actually turns, actually meets her eye, head cocked to one side, looking at her like she’s something he’s never considered until now. He probably hasn't.

“Of course I do,” he says, his tongue wets his lower lip. “It’s my _history_.”

And he spends the rest of the night stalking around and ignoring everyone like he always does and Brienne isn't stupid enough to ask him about it again.

Brienne get the job because she makes Jaime Lannister laugh. It's her size first, and her hair and her hands and her clothing and her face. She interviews because she's broke and she has classes during the day and Jaime Lannister laughs at her and she stands there and lets him ( _because she is broke, because she has classes during the day _).__

“I mean sure,” he said when he’d stopped laughing. “Alright.”

“What?”

“You've got the job. God knows you’d scare anyone off.”

Brienne doesn't really think that’s how _interviewing for jobs_ should go but she knows she should count her blessings so she takes it. He’s _Jaime Lannister_ , he won’t stick around for very long. But he does. He’s there every night and he stops laughing at her and takes to using increasingly feminine nicknames instead. Darling, baby, _princess_. She calls him ‘boss’ exclusively and it pleases her greatly to see that it irritates him.

The job is alright, more often than not in the dim alley under dirty neon the patrons mistake her for a man. It’s better that way. It makes patting down their jackets easier. When they realise there’s a woman with her hands in their clothes, they can get vicious. Brienne knows three different kinds of martial arts for a reason and she deals with it quickly and almost never has to get Jaime involved.

He starts to stand with her during the early hours of the morning. They lean against the crumbling brick wall and watch the sun rise in dirty puddles of water. He eases up on the nicknames, only calls her princess when he knows she’ll laugh. She still calls him boss at every opportunity and it starts to make him smile.

Most of the other names they call one another are much worse anyway. When they argue like children and spit curses around grins and she elbows him in the ribs and he ruffles her hair into oblivion. She likes to watch him splutter with indignation when she declares an opinion she knows he will hate. She likes the burning in her cheeks when they yell and it bounces off the alley wall, she likes the warm glow she gets when they settle into an agreement.

“You really are the only reason I come here,” he tells her one day and she laughs.

“You’re a liar, boss,” she says.

“Only a little,” he agrees. “I come here for you and for....the _start_.”

“The start?”

“This place. It was the first place my father bought. This wasn't always such a shitty neighbourhood, it used to be a little bit charming. This place use to be a sort of...wannabe loft apartment and we lived here, me and my...sister and my father and mother. Then my brother was born and my mother died and...” Jaime shrugs. “Dad didn't want anything to do with the place anymore but I convinced him not to sell it.”

Brienne almost can’t look at him, this feels so wrong. He’s never been one to pour out his feelings, especially not to her, and this feels like it’s _too much_. She carefully shifts her position, afraid of spooking him too, she carefully licks her lips but he’s started talking again before she can.

“But I still cared about it even if no one else did. I don’t think Cersei’s been back here, Tyrion never really lived here so it doesn't mean anything to him. It’s the place I knew before everyone in my goddamn awful family turned toxic.”

He stares at the concrete in front of him, scuffs a shoe through the gritty dirt left behind after rain. Brienne watches his shoe instead of him and the silence feels impossibly huge. She wants to touch him.

“I’m _sorry_!” she bursts out finally in a rush of air, when it gets too much, and he starts to laugh. She screws up her face in embarrassment, won’t look at him, _won’t look at him_ , and he keeps laughing.

“Alright, enough already,” she mumbles when it gets too hard to listen to and he ruffles her hair then combs his fingers through, slower than usual, like it’s affection and not annoyance that prompts it, and she leans back into his touch a little before realising and pulling away.

“You’re a terrible person, princess,” he says happily.

“You’re a scumbag, boss,” she retorts, still tingling uncomfortably (comfortably, _deliciously_ ).

“Look me in the eye and say that,” he challenges (there's a purr in his voice somewhere) and she laughs this time (there's a tremor in her voice somewhere) and widens her eyes at him outrageously and he tugs at a piece of her hair and she elbows him savagely in the ribs and his fingers press lightly at the edge of her jaw then tiptoe around the base of her skull to tangle in her soft, short hair, and she tilts her head down so that their foreheads almost touch and presses the heel of her palm to the small of his back and grips the fabric of his shirt and...

“Everything alright here?” Petyr Baelish asks, walking passed them, looking hollow eyed and devious as always. Brienne knocks her head against the bricks with the force she puts into getting away from Jaime and he bows his head around a smile, palms his hands against the pockets of his jeans.

"You caught me chastising my wife,” he tells Petyr, tilting his chin like a challenge. But Petyr doesn't take it, just nods, a strange look drifting across his face and gone in a moment, and leaves them to their brick walls and their puddles and whatever argument they’ll conjure up next just to keep them talking until the sun comes up.

**Author's Note:**

> For jb appreciation week again. Day 2 - A quote. Obviously it is "You caught me chastising my wife" which is my absolute favourite quote tbh. thank you for reading kids! xo


End file.
